The invention is based on an appliance for longitudinal multitrack recording and/or replay of signals, in particular of digital signals, using a magnetic tape. One field of application for this technology is, for example, so-called data streamers for producing data copies in relatively large data processing systems.
Such recording and/or replay of data are/is carried out by means of a head arrangement which is arranged on the drive chassis of the appliance and has a stationary multitrack head which has an appropriate number of individual heads for writing and reading the multiple tracks. U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,245 discloses, for example, a recorder which, during multitrack recording of data, allows the data which have just been recorded to be read by a further multitrack head and, furthermore, allows bidirectional multitrack recording and replay of data.
The design of such head arrangements is relatively complex, and they need to be highly accurate, which can be achieved by individual adjustment, particularly when a plurality of multitrack heads are used in one head arrangement. Furthermore, multitrack recording and/or replay of data is dependent on defined and precise guidance of the recording medium with respect to the head arrangement.